Many Winners In Thunder Road Action

BARRE, Vt. — Community College of Vermont Night at Thunder Road brought five feature races for four divisions on the Barre highbanks Thursday night.

In just two-hours and 45 minutes, two first time winners immerged in the rk Miles Street Stocks while legends continue to grow in victory lane. 

The rk Miles Street Stock spotlight started early as they were the first feature of CCV Night at The Road. It would be a fierce battle up front between Jesse Laquerre and Trevor Jaques under the restart green flag until Laquerre became fully in charge on lap 10.

The field would spread themselves out until a lap 22 caution for the spinning Parker Gagne into the backstretch grass clumped the field back together again. 

Laquerre and Kasey Collins would restart the pack for the final three laps with Patrick Tibbetts attempting to get under Laquerre and William Henniquin coming in a late charge as well. Jesse Laquerre would take his first Thunder Road win as the fourth generation of Laquerre’s to win at the Nation’s Site of Excitement.Patrick Tibbetts and William Henniquin rounded out the podium.

The Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tigers had quite the showdown. Led to point by Tyler Pepin and Cooper French, Pepin would get loose on the exit of turn two on lap two, collecting Chris LaForest into the frontstretch Widowmaker wall before Jason Woodard and Zach Audet piled in. After clean-up, another quick caution would slow the field for the ejected hood of Phil Potvin. Under the return to green, young Cooper French would duke it out with Brandon Gray for over twenty laps nose-to-tail before the final caution on lap 24. A chain-reaction sent top-three point men Sam Caron, Jason Pelkey and Logan Powers into the spin-cycle in turns three and four to call out the yellow. 

French would secure the lead once again under the restart as the two continued to battle at the front. With French loose off the corners, Gray finally capitalized to move under the Northfield-native coming of turn two to lead lap 35. Brandon Gray would take his first win of the season at Thunder Road, and fourth of the season in his new mount, followed by Cam Gadue and a hard-charging Rich Lowrey to round out the top three.

The Maplewood/Irving Oil Late Models took to the field next led to point by Governor Phil Scott and longtime racer Tyler Cahoon. Scott would take the early lead but heavy pressure from a hungry Stephen Martin allowed Cahoon to jump to the outside groove and take over the lead. The lone caution would come out for the sliding Jaden Perry and Cody Schoolcraft in turn one on lap 20. Cahoon and Scott would square-off again on the restart with Cahoon taking the lead back. 

As the field stretched out, it was a three-way battle for fourth between leading rookie Kaiden Fisher, Scott and Nick Sweet. Looking like a photo from years past, the three battled hard to the end with Sweet and Fisher sliding sideways across the line for Sweet to edge Fisher by just .004 seconds to take fourth. Tyler Cahoon would get the win followed by Stephen Martin and Kyle Pembroke.

The 9th annual Marvin Johnson Memorial First-Time Winner’s Race saw one of the event’s largest fields to date with 13 rk Miles Street Stockers who had yet to taken a checkered flag at Thunder Road.

Led to green by Trevor Jaques and Kasey Collins, the two would put on a side-by-side barnburner at the front of the field until lap 11 saw the two leaders get caught up in lap-traffic with Jaques taking the advantage all the way to victory lane for the first time. 

The Burnett Scrap Metals Road Warriors threw an equally fantastic 20-lap feature to wrap up Community College of Vermont Night. The caution-free event was led to green by Ryan Sayers and Tyler Wheatley with Flyin’ Fred Fleury, Chris ‘Creature’ Couture and Karsen Murphy sailing sideways into the frontstretch grass.

A seven-car battle for third was a complete melee on every inch of the asphalt at Thunder Road until Neal Foster and Nate ‘Tater’ Brien climbed out of the heap. Tater quickly found himself at the rear-bumper of Wheatley and a lap 18 pass under the Brookfield driver made it all clear. Nate ‘Tater’ Brien took down his eighth career Road Warrior win followed by Taylor Sayers and Tyler Wheatley to round out victory lane.